Adsorption of SO₂ from Wet Mixtures on Hydrophobic Zeolites

Abstract

Breakthrough curve measurements of SO₂ and water vapor were carried out on a number of selected mordenite and pentasil zeolites from their binary and ternary mixtures with CO₂ at 50 and 100°C. SO₂ capacities of these samples were found to be significantly reduced by the presence of water. Competitive adsorption led to unusually high overshoot peaks of SO₂ breakthrough curves. On the other hand, SO₂ was found to displace water on the samples with very high silica to alumina ratio. A linear driving force, isothermal model was used to predict the breakthrough curves. Langmuir and extended Langmuir equilibrium models were used to describe the equilibrium properties of water and SO₂, respectively. The overall mass transfer resistance obtained from the model was compared to the values calculated from a simplified biporous adsorbent model to shed some light on the adsorption kinetics.